WithoutWax.tv by Pete Wilson | Tag Archive | elders
Tag Archive - elders

Needed

November 13, 2008 in Church Leadership, Cross Point Church, Leadership, Religion with 44 Comments

The elders of my church have been working with me recently to help assure I’m leading out of my strengths. Their desire is to help me be successful at what I feel God’s called me to do.

In the process of putting together this 3 year plan they interviewed 20 of the closest people I work with and do life with here at Cross Point. One of the questions they asked was,

“What does Pete need in order to be the pastor at CP for 20+ years”

I thought this was a great question for several reasons, but for me personally it was huge. It communicated to me that they “want me”. That… I’m needed…. what I do matters… my gifts and abilities are valuable to the church now and into the future.

I recently read in “Three Signs of a Miserable Job” by Patrick Lencioni,

Human beings need to be needed, and they need to be reminded of this pretty much every day. They need to know that they are helping others, not merely serving themselves. Everyone ultimately wants and needs to help others, and when they cannot, misery ensues.

Remind your team today why they are needed. From the top all the way down they need to know your team can’t reach their goals without them (and if you can they probably shouldn’t be there). They need to know what they do matters. When people lose sight of how they contribute to the mission they generally stop trying and start dieing emotionally.

Yours thoughts???
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I Need To Confess

July 7, 2008 in Church Planting, Friends, Religion with 63 Comments

Yesterday at Cross Point Nashville, Pastor Tom spoke on the spiritual discipline of confession. I thought it was a fantastic message and it really got me thinking. He talked about how, as Christians, many of us have grown up in a religious format that has taught us how to “pretend”.

My guess is that many of us have layers and layers of different masks we wear. Some of these masks cover up pain from our past. Some of the masks cover up habitual sin in our life. Maybe the masks cover up our insecurities.

And most of the time I don’t think we realize just how dangerous these masks are.

There was a quote that I heard or read years ago, I can’t even remember who said it, but it has always stuck with me. It went something like this…

“You can only be loved to the extent that you are known”

This is so true! And I have a lot of work to do in this area. I’m still tempted to hide instead of reveal. I’m tempted to make myself sound a lot more spiritual than I really am. Tempted to act like I have faith when I really don’t. Tempted to tell stories that make me sound like I’m a better husband or father than I really am.

I guess I sometimes just find it easier to pretend and cover up than to live totally authentic.

I think we have a long way to go in today’s church to truly understand what confessional community looks like. We can preach it all day, but as church leaders we have a lot of work to do to create environments where people feel safe to live this out.

I know I’m committed, and so are our elders, to taking the steps needed to create this kind of life changing, authentic, community here at Cross Point.

So, why do you think we wear so many masks?

Cross Point Leadership Team

June 25, 2008 in Church Leadership, Church Planting, Cross Point Church, Leadership, Religion, Vision with 4 Comments

I often get asked about our leadership structure at Cross Point. This is an important part of Cross Point because we attempt to structure the church in a way that maximizes ministry and minimizes bureaucracy, and yet, still provides accountability on all levels.

On a human level, three groups of people direct the ministries of Cross Point. Those bodies are the Elders, the Board of Directors, and the staff.

The elders are members of the church who provide general watchcare and oversight. The Board of Directors are members of the church empowered by the Elders to oversee the legal and financial aspects of the ministry (They keep us off Dateline!) And finally, the staff directs the day-to-day operations of the ministries of the church.

In our Discovering Cross Point Class we say the three groups work together as follows: the staff directs the ministries of the church; these ministries are supported by the policies and financial resource allocation determined by the Board of Directors; and all the activities of the church are carried out under the watch-care and supervision of the Elders.

I’m very excited that our Cross Point Elders have started a blog. As you can imagine, finding effective ways to communicate in a growing church can be difficult. If you’re interested in getting to know the the CP elders better as well as finding out what’s going on in the health of Cross Point you can check out the blog HERE.